Lessons from the home

Just recently I was helping both my dad and my mom to do different things at home. My mom was sick, so she couldn't really move around much or do much stuff as she'd used to, so I had to help her with the housework like sweeping the floor and mopping the floor. As for my dad, I helped him handle the garden. Apparantly he bought aroud 85 kg of granite stones to pave the garden bed, as to prevent the dogs from digging up the garden anymore.. so well here we go with the garden..The housework was really easy. I mean, sweeping the floor and mopping the floor was really sweatless stuff, and it literally didn't require much thinking to do it. The tricky part of helping my parents came from my dad's side. As my dad is an experienced gardening-professional, he knew what had to be done, and I didn't. And my dad is the type of person who wouldn't tell you "Boy, I need you help" and instead of asking for help, he'd be struggling to do all the work by himself - which of course doesn't really contribute to you at the end of it. What happened most of the time then was that, I would be standing by the side watching my dad do most of the work, while he would be heaving and panting and sweating and stuff...

"Papa, do what now?"

*Grunt* *Grunt* "Uh.. well.. the bricks.."

That was the type of situation I was dealing with.

But that didn't last long. Eventually what I had to do was to use an old unused wok to scoop up rocks from the rock pile and throw it over the soil to form a layer of granite rocks over the present soil. And so I started working. Initially it was easy, I was so full of enthusiasm and spirit was so on fire that I worked fast and hard, but as time passed by I started to slow down, felt that I was getting weaker, thought I needed a break and stuff.. and was on the verge of giving up. As I was just about to walk in, I looked over my shoulder and saw my dad still working tirelessly on the garden. "Geesh," I thought, "doesn't he need a break?" And the thought of leaving my dad to do all the work alone was totally disgusting.. I mean, come on, you can't let your old man do all the job alone could you? I'm not that unfelia after all, so that was the last thing that hold me on to continuing to finish up the garden with him.
So the garden floor was done, and little did I know the fun was just about to begin. My dad started to rearrange hanging pots of orchids all over the rambutan trees in the garden. What he did was that he'd use a metal pipe and tie it on large branches horizontally, and then hang the orchid pots on it. He'd be the one that goes up the ladder and tie the pipes, and I'd be the one from below passing him the stuff.
"Joash, cut me a wire (signals with hand gestures) THIS long, ok?"

"No, that's too long for one wire and too short for two.."

"Pass me the longest pipe there is down there.."

"Got any longer ones?"

"I said i wanted a LOOOONG one, you give me such a short one for what?"

Ya ya ya, and did I mention anywhere that my dad nags too?

So there you go, he tied the pipes and hanged the orchids pots.
As I looked back on the whole little gardening experience, it made me realise a number of things. I, as my dad's son, may be physically stronger than my dad now, but where responsibilities and duties are concerned, I still am not as ready as my dad to handle stuff. Unlike the household chores, I could do all of that, but what my dad has been doing all this while, I'm just not able to do all of it. Even if I had enough strength to do it, I wouldn't know what to do!

Which reminds me in a very indirect manner, that I'm not ready for a lot of things.

Kinda like a pin to my inflated ego..

I've always like the thought that I can do a lot of things on my own without my dad or mom, I can travel here there anywhere, I can work, I can do this I can do that, but at the end of the day when it comes to the real work that mattered, I still had to cry out for help from my dad. When I was working in the microbiology lab, the only thought in my mind was "How on earth did my dad do all of this on his own last time?" and I was partly amazed, coz at that time I knew nuts about microbiology, and all I thought about microbiology was the microscope and the magnifying glass in the lab.. that's all! So when I saw all the work that my dad did in the lab, I was dumbstruck. I would hold up an apparatus and ask the staff there, "My dad buat punya kah?" and they would just nod their head in a very as-a-matter-of-fact way.

And my dad never said bragged about any such stuff at home. All he did when he comes home every evening was to tell the funny stories of how the new staff meddled up the culture plates, or complain about how lousy his boss was to him. Another funny thing, my dad was a state microbiologist, most experienced and senior microbiologist in the country, and he still had a boss?

Here I am, standing and loooking at the garden and thinking, it wasn't hard actually, it was just that I didn't know what to do. And at times things aren't just tough to do, it's just that we don't know what to do. After all, we always need a guide to lead and show us what to do when we don't know what to do. There must always be a someone in front of us.

And in life, I have chose to let that someone be Jesus. Speaking about Jesus, I have a real funny relationship with him, and at times I'd literally argue with Him and be stubborn... but seriously I'll keep those stories for another time. (No joke, I argued with God before.. I'll relate later) And the only reason why I chose him was simple. Not so much because He is God or because he sees the past, the present and the future, or because he knows everything..

... but simply because He is a friend. A best friend. A friend that never fails when Man have, a friend that never betrays when people have, a friend that doesn't turn his back on you when you need Him the most. He's always there.

But if it's about gardening, it'll be easier to just ask my dad then.